Solana Spaces Founder Announces Closure of Retail Stores

• Norby had launched Solana Spaces in the first half of 2022.
• The two shops debuted in late July and early August in New York and Miami.

The two Solana shops will be shut down since they were unable to attract as many customers as expected. The company announced the closures through Twitter on February 21 and included a message from founder Vibhu Norby.

Norby had launched Solana Spaces in the first half of 2022. He said that the business had hit an “inflection point” with the retail outlets. Causing a reallocation of resources to “DRiP,” a new platform for disseminating works of the non-fungible token (NFT) artwork.

Banking on DRiP

When asked why it had decided to adjust its investment emphasis, Norby said that although its shops onboard between 500 and 1,000 individuals each week, DRiP onboard the same number every day.

Norby said the decision to shut the stores was taken “a few weeks ago” and that they would “sunset” at the end of February. The stores are situated in the Hudson Yards district of Manhattan and the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami.

The two shops debuted in late July and early August in New York and Miami, respectively, so the exciting plan didn’t last long. Norby said that the “experiment” was designed to get more individuals into the Solana and Web3 ecosystem as part of a larger strategy.

Norby stated:

“Our endowed mission from day one was to experiment with new and disruptive models to bring people to Web3, and to serve the community on behalf of the Solana Foundation.”

But now he sees that the company’s efforts could be more fruitful in the digital sphere with DRiP. In-person wallet onboarding training, reward earning, merchandising, and event attendance were all available at the Solana-themed retail locations.